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COVID-19

Bellefonte braces for potential protest at school board meeting

BELLEFONTE — A neighboring school district faced disruptions during its school board meeting last week. Now, the Bellefonte Area School district will have a meeting of its own. The first regular school board meeting of the 2021-22 school year is scheduled for 7 p.m., tonight, at the Bellefonte Area Middle School cafeteria. Last week, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced that his administration was imposing a statewide mask requirement for all schools, kindergarten through 12th grade. Masks will be required for students, staff and visitors in public and private schools, early ...

Greece begins giving COVID-19 vaccines outside churches

ARCHANES, Greece (AP) — Greece has begun administering vaccinations for COVID-19 outside churches in a pilot program recently announced by the government as a means of encouraging more people to get the shots. Mobile National Health Organization units began administering shots Monday in a church yard in Archanes, a town near the city of Heraklion on the southern island of Crete. The single-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine was being used, with shots being administered from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. Fifty-two appointments were booked for the first day, but some people were turning up ...

Two anchors of COVID safety net ending, affecting millions

WASHINGTON — Mary Taboniar went 15 months without a paycheck, thanks to the COVID pandemic. A housekeeper at the Hilton Hawaiian Village resort in Honolulu, the single mother of two saw her income completely vanish as the virus devastated the hospitality industry. For more than a year, Taboniar depended entirely on boosted unemployment benefits and a network of local foodbanks to feed her family. Even this summer as the vaccine rollout took hold and tourists began to travel again, her work was slow to return, peaking at 11 days in August — about half her pre-pandemic ...

KCSD, SVRC will comply with masking mandate

MILL HALL — The Keystone Central School District will comply with the state’s masking mandate, it was announced during Thursday night’s work session. Earlier this week, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced that his administration was imposing a statewide mask requirement for all schools, kindergarten through 12th grade. Masks will be required for students, staff and visitors in public and private schools, early learning programs and childcare centers in Pennsylvania, beginning on Tuesday, Sept. 7. The mandate was imposed by order of the state’s acting secretary of health, Alison ...

Efforts grow to stamp out use of parasite drug for COVID-19

WASHINGTON (AP) — Health experts and medical groups are pushing to stamp out the growing use of a decades-old parasite drug to treat COVID-19, warning that it can cause harmful side effects and that there’s little evidence it helps. With a fourth wave of infections, more Americans are turning to ivermectin, a cheap drug used to kill worms and other parasites in humans and animals. Federal health officials have seen a surge in prescriptions this summer, accompanied by worrying increases in reported overdoses. The drug was even given to inmates at a jail in northwest Arkansas for ...

US hiring slows as delta variant weakens travel and tourism

WASHINGTON (AP) — America’s employers added just 235,000 jobs in August, a surprisingly weak gain after two months of robust hiring and the clearest sign to date that the delta variant’s spread has discouraged some people from flying, shopping and eating out. The August job growth the government reported Friday fell far short of the sizable gains of roughly 1 million in each of the previous two months. The hiring jumps in June and July had followed widespread vaccinations that allowed the economy to fully reopen from pandemic restrictions. Now, with Americans buying fewer plane ...